Ghosts of Fort Pillow
by MysteryTrek
Summary: One hundred and fifty years ago, during the darkest days in American history, a horrible crime was committed in Tennessee. The perpetrators have since passed beyond and the ghost of a victim has come back, looking to make someone pay in blood. Danny now has to face the past of his family and in doing so, face the legacy of a Civil War that continues to cast a shadow to its very day
1. Chapter One

A/N: This is beta'd by Cordria.

"The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise to the occasion. We cannot escape history. We will be remembered in spite of ourselves. The fiery trial though which we pass will light us down in honor or dishonor to the last generation. We shall nobly save or meanly lose our last, best hope of Earth."

-Abraham Lincoln, as quoted by Bruce Boxleitner, _Babylon 5_

Chapter One

"Do you have to go?" Danny asked somewhat pleadingly as Sam gently folded her dark violet underwear and put it into her suitcase. They'd moved in together barely three weeks ago, _nine _months, after their emancipation in the wake of what was universally being hailed as "the Miracle in Antarctica." Two years of "hero work", to borrow a term from a Pixar film, had taught them both painful lessons in the fact that a) they weren't immortal just because they were young and b) no one's plans survived first contact with life. _But damn it did she _have _to leave barely three weeks after we finally got settled in together._

Sam paused before she picked up the last pair of underwear and looked up at him, favoring him with a sympathetic look. "I know what you wanted to do, Danny, but I've been trying to impress upon my mother that I'm not some dangerously irresponsible loose cannon just because I'm almost seventeen and I've been fighting ghosts since I was fourteen. And this is the best chance I have."

"In Hong Kong?" Danny said incredulously. "I've heard you," he searched for the least offensive word he could come up with for what he was about to say next, "criticize the People's Republic of China's policies in Hong Kong and Macau since we were twelve. Hell I've heard you say that both territories should have gone to _Taiwan_." _Which would have caused the Third World War._

As soon as the words were out of his mouth he knew he'd made a mistake. "But they got rid of the democratically elected councils the British and the Portuguese instituted before they left, cracked down on free speech-,"

He held up her hand to forestall her rant. "So why are you going?"

Sam sighed and stood there, looking down at the suitcase as she thought about it. "I don't know. It _is_ still Hong Kong. I've always wanted to see it. And I get to try to impress upon my parents that I am in fact capable of interacting on an adult level. A genuine adult level, not what most people our age think is an adult level."

Danny smirked. "And you get to stand in a protest line waving the flag of British Hong Kong as a snub to the People's Republic."

Sam smirked back. "And I get to stand in a protest line waving the flag of British Hong Kong as a snub to the so-called People's Republic." She put the last pair of underwear in the suitcase and closed it and locked it. She walked around to him, wrapped his arms around her neck, and leaned up for a hard kiss. After a long moment they broke the kiss and she favored him with a lovestruck smile. "Try to hold the world together while I'm gone."

Danny smiled back and leaned in to press a kiss on her forehead. "I always do."

She pulled her suitcase off the desk and walked towards the door. When she was stepping out he said, "Try not to reset the nuclear clock while you're gone." He heard a sharp laugh as Sam closed the door behind her, the sound of her footsteps echoing down the hall. He walked to the window and watched as she slid into the back of her parents' black Rolls-Royce before it drove away.

Danny sighed, folding his arms across his chest and shook his head. For what it was worth, he really hoped that this attempt at reconciliation took, even if he didn't expect much from it. Which was the sad part; her mother couldn't accept that she and her husband had raised a decent, honorable young woman. No she, and to a lesser extent, her husband had this checklist in their head, and if every aspect of their daughter's personality didn't fit the checklist, they considered their job failed.

In other words they were still trying to raise an idealized version of themselves.

He looked around him, at the still somewhat incongruous, at least in his own mind, fact that he and Sam were in what had once been his _parents'_ masterbedroom. That was but one symptom of the changes that had ripped through everyone's life in the few months since Antarctica. When they had phased the planet to allow a giant ectoranium asteroid the size of Great Britain to pass through the planet and out the other side without both being destroyed (it had since crashed into the surface of Mercury). The world was in the process of changing.

It had taken some doing but he and his sister Jasmine had finally managed to convince their parents that the technology had applications beyond ghost hunting. And when the patents for Vlad's technology had been transferred to them, the fact that they could not only revolutionize aviation, power generation, medicine, and so many other fields _and _allow humanity access to their own solar system had been too tempting to ignore.

And it worked. Inside three months they were already making money hand over fist, and with so much of it actually tied up in assets, and the fact that he'd already learned not to let money go to his head, there was no real temptation to snub his friends and replace them with robots like last time. But still leave quite a sum for them to live off. They were on the company payroll as the nascent ghost-hunting/private military arm, as a way to allow them to be paid for what they'd been doing for the past few years anyway, which coupled with the legal emancipation of him and his friends, had been one of the high points of the last year.

But the greatest joy of it was when his parents, as part of their long-term plan to move to a space station/shipyard they were busily designing, signed the house over to him, and allowed Sam to move in with him with their tacit approval.

His eyes widened at the sudden thought of what he could do to pass the time._ I wonder what Val and Tuck are doing to pass the time._ Tucker's brief term as Mayor had foundered when the inevitable lawsuit found that the resolution of the town council appointing him mayor for the remainder of Vladimir Master's term had violated state law. He'd been removed from power with astonishing speed, and returned to his unofficial job as their computer analyst. Valerie had naturally joined up with them as well, increasing their combat power substantially…and becoming a new member of their inner circle of friends. Which is why he was texting them both to see if they could come over.

* * *

_Fort Pillow State Park. Forty Miles north of Memphis, Tennessee_

The setting sun cast an orange glow over the murky waters of Fort Pillow Lake as Danielle Fenton came in for a soft landing. Shifting back into her human form, the young woman sighed as she looked around her, wondering where her contact was.

"Cervantes?" She called out in a whisper as she stalked into the underbrush along the shoreline. She moved deeper into the trees. "Cervantes?"

She felt a strong arm grab her and yank her towards a blurred form. She didn't have time to say anything before she felt someone's mouth pressed hard against her and enveloped in someone else's arms. It was Cervantes she realized, glancing to their right with his eyes. She followed his gaze and saw two people standing there. She saw them they were...rough-looking, to say the least. Not with the kind of air of affected suave that Guys in White units used as a matter of course. No, they worked for the group she was investigating. They were thugs, and didn't care who knew it. Understanding his intent, she began kissing him back. It was dark., and their features were just common enough that there was at least a chance they'd assume they weren't the people they were looking for.

After a few moments of this, they left, stalking back into the underbrush themselves.

Cervantes broke the kiss after their footfalls faded, shooting her an apologetic look, though she couldn't help but detect just a smidge of masculine smugness on the older guy's face.

_Can't blame him for that, that _was_ a good kiss,_ she began to babble in her head. Shaking her head, she sighed and said, "We can talk about what happened later, Cervantes. Do you have the information?"

Cervantes nodded vigorously and reached into his backpack and handed her a manila folder. "Here it is. Names. Addresses. Stuff that can make a real dent in that trafficking ring you've been trying to shut down." The tawny-skinned, dark-haired young man's face hardened. "You do something with this, you hear me? Make that dent. My sister died helping me get you this information."

She sighed, a dull ache filling her. Cervantes Quinn was one of her most dedicated contacts. One of the few who knew the truth of both sides of her personality, when both saving his life and maintaining her cover in front of him had been problematic. She'd already asked so much of him over the past couple years. It had cost him so much.

"Thank you, Cervantes." She said softly, taking the folder gently as if it were made of silk and shoving it into her duffel bag. "Whether by my hand or the law's, they will fall. It will not be in vain."

Cervantes smiled a wan smile. "I know it will. Sorry for surprising you like that." He turned to walk away.

She grabbed his hand. Without another word, she leaned up and pressed his mouth to hers. She pulled away. "You could kiss me again before you go. I'm not trying to start anything more than that."

Cervantes smiled back at her. "I've always wanted to make out with a ghost girl."

She punched him in the shoulder playfully before bringing his mouth back down to hers.

After forty minutes of necking, Danielle tramped out of the underbrush, a goofy smile on her face. _This day went nicer than expected. _ _Fort Pillow's nicer than I thought it would be._

Then the residual lust, and her breath, was forced out of her lungs as though she'd been punched in the gut. "Oh, my God," she said to no one in particular. "The massacre. How could I forget?"

One hundred and fifty years earlier, this place had been the site of a battle between Union and Confederate forces. The place had changed hands several times over the course of the war, Tennessee, for the most part, having fallen rather early in the conflict. The battle, _the massacre _corrected herself, however was a losing one for the Union. The Confederate army that had taken the fort, under the command of legendary cavalry officer Lieutenant General Nathan Bedford Forrest, had violated the most basic aspects of battlefield conduct that day. They used the ceasefire to maneuver into positions they hadn't been able to take during the actual fighting, and once they'd forced the Union garrison's surrender, had rampaged through the garrison, consisting in large part of the Sixth U.S. Regiment Colored Heavy Artillery and the Memphis Battery Light Artillery (African Descent); from four in the afternoon to dusk, they indiscriminately massacred everyone they came across, being particularly savage to the soldiers and the white officers of the colored units, with one lieutenant being nailed to the floor of the barracks before setting the building on fire. And that wasn't even the worst of it.

She shuddered. _I should have remembered where we were, _damn _it. Talk about disrespecting the dead._

She heard a rustling behind her, and what felt like cold fingers inched their way down her shoulder blades. Instinct took over and she let out an icy blue breath. Swearing to herself, she shifted into her ghost form and wheeled about, her fist glowing with a green ball of plasma as she prepared to face whatever was coming out at her.

The leaves rustled again, and she heard whimpering coming from the brush. Having been lured into ambushes by ghosts pretending to be hurt or sad before, she advanced on the underbrush stealthily, moving the bushes aside, to see... A ghost child. It was small, floating in mid-air. It was huddled in fear as he, and it was a he, about roughly seven or eight in human terms, and he was clearly terrified.

Sympathy and suspicion mixed in her chest as she approached the boy cautiously. "Hey," she said in a low, soothing tone as she approached the boy, letting the plasma dissipate from her hand. "Hey how are you?"

The boy looked up at him, eyes wide with obvious fear. He began to shy away from her, and she held her hand out.

"My…my daddy is gone," he whimpered softly. "Can you help me find him?"

Having a sinking feeling about when this boy's father died, and assuming he wasn't conceived with another ghost after his arrival in the ghost zone, when the _boy _died, she nodded.

"What's your name?"

The boy, hesitantly nodded. "Richard."

Danni nodded quickly. "Richard. Do you know where your father died?"

He nodded vigorously himself. "Here," he said, causing a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. "The Rebs killed him. They didn't like us, working for the Union."

She sighed. "And where is your father now?"

"Some place up North in Illinois. Amity Park. He said that some of their great-great-great grandchildren were up there, and he wants to pay them a visit."

_Why do I not like the sound of that?_

"All right. Do you know where your mother is?"

He nodded. "Back in the Ghost Zone."

"Okay," she reached into her duffel bag, and extracted a Fenton thermos, glinting silver in the moon's light. "Do you know what this is?"

He shook his head. "No."

"This is where we put ghosts for transport home," she partially lied, as soothingly as she could. Part of her rebelled against putting a child ghost in the thermos, but she didn't have must choice. Amity Park's Guys in White presence was large, and the last thing she needed was a battle with the GIW. That by itself would be more traumatic for the little boy than a Fenton Thermos that rendered low to medium power ghosts unconscious immediately anyway. "I'm going to put you in here, and you'll fall asleep. And when you wake up you'll be back in the Ghost Zone. Then I'll find your father, if I haven't found him already. Either way, as soon as you're back there go back to your mother."

"You'll find him? You promise?"

"I promise." That wasn't a white lie. She'd bring him back. She just hoped that the sinking feeling that told her he was looking for payback was an overreaction.

The boy seemed to think about it for a moment. Then nodded. "Okay."

She pointed the thermos at him, then in two practiced motions she unscrewed the lid and let the crackling rush of energy suck him in. She closed the lid, screwed it on tight before putting it back in her bag.

She took off, soaring into the air. First stop, she'd drop her packet off at the FBI office in Memphis. The Feds would take it from there, and the child trafficking ring that she'd been hunting ofor months would run on rails to its appointed end. Then it was northwest, to Amity Park, and she hoped it wouldn't be too late: for she had a bad feeling that the innocent were going to be made to answer for the crimes of their forbears.


	2. Chapter Two

Chapter Two

"Power is better than revenge. Power is a live thing, by which you reach out to grasp the future. Revenge is a dead thing, reaching out from the past to grasp you."

-Lois McMaster Bujold, _Borders of Infinity_

Valerie Gray sighed as she pushed back away from Danny's kitchen table. Her head rolled back before she looked at a plate full of smeared tomato sauce. It was a remnant of spaghetti from Romano's_, _the Italian restaurant up the street that she and Danny had frequented, either just the two of them or with Danny's girlfriend Sam over the course of the past year. She felt stuffy, and she wagered Danny and Tucker felt stuffy too. Then again, waging an impromptu eating contest out of sheer boredom probably wasn't the best way to pass the time.

_We should have just played _Halo. "No," Valerie said breathily from the pressure in her stomach, as her head fell back on her chair again. "No more."

"Ah," Danny said, sounding just as gutpunched as she did, "Is the sexy, feisty, Red Huntress giving up already?" Valerie wanted to respond with an obscene gesture, which Danny wouldn't have taken personally, but she was too full to even do that.

Instead she settled for smiling in satisfaction as Danny and Tucker collapsed in exhaustion.

"Whose idea was this?" Tucker asked through several deep breaths.

"Blame him," Valerie responded.

Danny shot her an evil look before laughing. It _was _his idea after all.

"I'll be back," Tucker said suddenly, and somehow finding the strength to, bound up from his chair. "I have to go to the bathroom," before tearing out of the kitchen and up the stairs.

Valerie managed to sit back up. "So do you think this Hong Kong excursion will work?"

Danny sighed. "I don't know…I want it too, but," and he enfolded his arms across his chest compulsively. "But sometimes I fear that there's just too much history there. Sam and her mother love each other, but until they both learn to accept the other as she is, warts and all, they're going to keep trying to destroy each other"

"Well, hopefully something positive happens on this trip."

"Yeah," Danny said, staring at the floor. After a long moment, he looked back up at her. "Well, I can't do anything about it right now," he said, the look of concern on his face belying his words. He opened his mouth, only she never got to hear what he had to say because the sound of the front door and several windows shattering under plasma fire.

A nanosecond thought later and her armor formed in existence around her as she charged into the living room, silvery-grey plasma rifle at the ready. The first thing she saw was Danni in full ghost form firing back out the gaping hole where Danny's front wall used to be, green ectoplasm flashing from her hands.

Valerie, her mind already calculating firing angles charged out the hole and bought her weapon to bear on the ghost. He was stocky, well-muscled, with the green skin that was the norm for most ghosts. His sturdy face a mask of rage as a swirling green plasma ball glowed brighter in his left hand. Knowing he was charging up for a major strike she drew a bead on her target and pulled the trigger. The ghost was yanked hard to the left by the blast, bring her face to face with her.

To her surprise he glared at her.

"What are you doing, girl?!" A heavily accented Southern voice shouted down at her angrily. "I'm trying to get my revenge!"

Momentarily taken aback by the almost parental chiding in his voice, and the fact that she sounded a lot like her Uncle in Tennessee, she stood there just staring at him for a few long seconds before she shook herself. "What did she do to you?!" She shouted back.

"Not her!" He said angrily. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Danny stick his head out the hole. "_Him!_" His face contorted with anger and green fire flashed from his hands towards Danny's head even as he pulled out of the way before charging up into the air, effortlessly bobbing and weaving his way in and out of enemy fire and bringing him to a stop nose to nose with their assailant.

"Okay," Danny said growling, "What did I ever do to you?!"

The ghost's face twisted with anger once more. "You mean you don't know! You mean your family didn't brag about it! How they slaughtered us as we were trying to surrender! About how _good_ it felt to put us in our place! They just couldn't stand to see us wearing a uniform and carrying a gun! Sure the people who did it are dead, and they didn't become ghosts, but _goddamn it_!"

Valerie stared back up at him, horror flooding her as she realized just who they were dealing with; and how long he must have been gone. And how he must have died. Though considering the history of what he was talking about it could have been anywhere from three hundred years ago to as late as forty years ago.

Or even later. _If I was lynched I'd be pissed as hell too if I came back._

She was bought back to the situation when a text message from Tucker flashed across her HUD, warning her he was about to shout for Danny to get out of the way and to be ready to catch their attacker in a crossfire. Remembering that he was trying to kill Danny for something he didn't do, she pushed it back out of her mind and surreptitiously readied her weapons.

"Get down!" Tucker's voice cracked like a whip out over them and Danny yanked himself out of the way as green plasma fired rained from the window of the guest room facing the street. Two of the shots impacted him, before he started trying to get out of the way of the incoming fire. Valerie sighted her weapon and started firing across his track, attempting to have him run into her fire rather than trying to aim for him directly.

Abruptly Danni's voice broke in over the FentonPhones. "_All of you cease fire and get inside, damn it! I'm about to bring up the anti-ghost shield!"_

Valerie, focused as she was with firing as many shots into the air as she could, let loose with an irritated grunt and brought her weapon back down before running back into the house, Danny flying in on her heels right as a shimmering green energy field began to envelop the house. Their attacker sent a torrent of swearing and plasma blasts hurling uselessly against the building's shields before banking hard to the left and tearing off into the night at top speed.

She turned around herself to see Danielle, in her human form, slumped against the wall and breathing heavily, sweat matting her black hair and clothes to her skin. Valerie heard Danny shift forms behind her before stepping in front of her. "You mind telling me what the hell that was?" He said harshly, either referring to the fact that they were attacked in the first place, the fact that she stopped the fight, or both.

Danni glared back at him. "In a moment," she said, clearly bone tired despite her irritation. "Follow me," she said as she shoved herself up the wall before heading into the kitchen and grabbing a duffel bag off the kitchen table before heading down into the basement. Valerie and the others followed her down the stairs.

She put the bag down on the desk and there, immersed in the green glow of the ghost portal's event horizon she reached in and pulled out…a Fenton Thermos.

"This is why I stopped the fight before you could overpower him," Danielle said as she connected the Thermos to the ghost return device.

"A Fenton Thermos?" Tucker said quizzically.

She nodded brusquely. "Containing his seven-year-old son. I swore to return him safely to his mother, and I couldn't do that if the entire place got shot out from under us could I."

Valerie looked around her and saw embarrassed shame on Danny and Tucker's faces for putting a child at risk, even inadvertently.

"Though if you were transporting his son," Valerie found herself asking. "Why did he attack you?"

She leaned back against the console, folding her arms. "I tried to stop him to explain it to him but he thought I was just trying to waylay him so he wouldn't kill Danny. Which I was, but I also hoped to use the fact that I was trying to return his son home to reason with him."

"Why does he want to kill me in the first place though?" Danny said.

"That will take some time to explain," she said looking bone-tired again, "Give me an hour to collect myself and I'll explain everything then, I promise."

* * *

Danny sat down between Valerie and Tucker at the table and watched as Danielle logged into the conference room computer and loaded the slide. He turned to view the large computer monitor on the back wall, where a divided screen showed the concerned faces of his parents. Introducing her to them had taken quite a bit of explaining, and he had taken quite a bit of flak for taking the compounds that he had used to stabilize her physiology without exploring the possible side effects. Which they were right about, but since it had worked he wasn't going to wring his hands about it now. He was however going to bring them in on it next time something like it happened, which he hoped to God it didn't. They did go along with keeping it between them for the time being though, and supporting the "distant cousin" theory in the event Jazz found out. For now they were far more concerned about the attack of course.

"Let's begin with a brief overview shall we?" Danielle said, the tone on her indicating that she was going to begin with a brief overview whatever the people she was supposedly asking thought.

"By the time of the incident in question, the American Civil War had been raging for three years, and advancing Union forces had managed to divide the Confederacy into thirds, Tennessee and Louisiana having largely been taken in the first couple years. There were a few areas in Tennessee where there was still scattered fighting. Forty miles south of Memphis, near Henning, Tennessee on the Mississippi River there was a fort that had been built in 1862 by a Confederate Brigadier General, Gideon Pillow, to guard the river entrance to Memphis. The Union Army used it for the same purpose when the Confederates pulled out.

Two years later, on March 16, 1864, seven thousand cavalry under Lieutenant General Nathan Bedford Forrest initiated a month long raid into Western Tennessee and Kentucky, to wreck fortifications and support facilities on the line Paducah-Memphis. By 10:00 AM on April 12, when Forrest reached the fort himself, one of his subordinate commanders Brigadier General James Chalmers had already surrounded it. A stray shot got Forrest's horse, and he ordered sharpshooters deployed as they began their offensive. Within an hour they'd managed to capture two lines of barracks about 150 yards from the southern end of the fort and subjected the Union forces remaining inside to intense fire. By 3:30, he had requested their surrender, telling them that they were going to be accorded the treatment required under the rules of war. The senior surviving officer William Bradford refused, and the battle raged again for another half hour. At 4:00 PM, the garrison had started to surrender, and that's where things got worse.

Enraged at the site of blacks in Union uniform, Confederate forces refused to accept their surrenders; they'd throw down their arms and get on their knees, and they were ordered back to their feet and then shot indiscriminately, shrieking, according to eyewitness accounts, 'No quarter! No quarter!' Some eyewitness accounts reported the white officers of the colored regiments getting tortured before they were slaughtered, one, according to one statement in the records Congress compiled after the war, being nailed to the floor of the barracks before being burned alive."

A scraping of a chair being shoved violently against the carpet and Danny turned, blue eyes widened to see _Valerie _of all people bounding out of the room and heading towards the bathroom. He stared after her for a moment; the concept of _Valerie_ being queasy at this sort of thing caught him off-guard, and judging by the looks on everyone's faces, so were they. A few minutes later, Valerie returned the room, resumed her seat, and gestured for Danielle to continue.

"I don't think I ned to say anything more really," Danielle said pointedly. "Bayonetted and burned alive pretty much sums it up."

"_Yes,_" Madeline Fenton said, causing him to turn to face his mother. Like everyone else in the room she hand mingled nausea and concern for her son on her face, her Deep South accent softened but notably not gone despite living in Wisconsin and Indiana since she was eighteen, "_but why is he after my son? He had nothing to do with that._"

Danielle sighed and walked towards the computer screen, arms folded under her breasts, her expression unreadable. "Of course," she said as she stared at her directly in the eye, "and neither do you, but I know your family history. I know where you came from, and are you really going to tell me that no one from your side of the family fought for the Confederacy? Yes, every southern state except South Carolina had homegrown Unionist regiments, but if even half of what he said is true, at least one of your ancestors fought for the Confederacy, and at least one of them had to be with General Forrest's cavalry at Fort Pillow."

Maddie sighed, and sat back in her chair, ignoring the concerned look on her husband's face. Then she nodded, red hair bobbin up and down. "_Yes._" She said. "_My grandma did say that _her _great-great grandfather fought for the Confederacy, and, legend says, with Forrest_._ But a lot of the records from that era are fragmentary, who's to say that there's any evidence._"

Danny grunted and shifted uncomfortably in his own chair. He hadn't exactly been unaware of much of this himself, his mother was proud of herself, proud of her family's history, and along with a higher baseline knowledge of biology that he and his sister gained simply from having a biologist for a mother, she had told them what she knew of her family's history. Since history was never his favorite subject: that was always Sam and, apparently, Danielle's, favorite subject, he'd never focused in on the little details. He got the big picture. Her ancestors had fought for both sides in the war, it had been a war that split brother against brother, cousin against cousin, father against son, like it had been for so many families on both sides.

"And that's why you want to finish this with a minimum of violence, if at all possible," Tucker said softly after a long moment. "You want to show him that the world really has changed since he's been gone. That there's quite literally…no one left to blame. At least for that."

"But how?" Valerie said. "I saw the look on his face. He's been hurting for a century and a half. What can we do against that?"  
"I don't know," Danny said, "I don't even know if it's possible. But I agree with Danni, we need to at least try before we resort to having to destroy him."


	3. Chapter Three

A/N: I'm sorry this took so long, life happened. If I got anything about the mezuzah wrong, I apologize in advance. From what I can tell, the number of mezuzah required is open to interpretation.

Chapter Three

"We would rather be ruined than changed  
We would rather die in our dread  
Than climb the cross of the moment  
And let our illusions die."

-W.H. Auden, _The Age of Anxiety_

Danielle sighed as she shut off the computer and the projector and leaned back in her chair, staring out at her "cousin" and the others surrounding her. They were all looking at _her _she realized. She understood why. Out of all of them, she was the one with the encyclopedic knowledge of history. If anyone could confirm the implications about her family, if anyone could find some way to figure out how to _reach _him, it was her. It was…daunting to say the least.

Suddenly, part of her really wished that she hadn't politely (and somewhat reluctantly) turned down Cervantes' offer to stay longer in the forest especially after they'd already gone _much _further than she initially intended. If she'd done just that, she never would have found that boy, or found out what his father was going to do. And Danny, Valerie, and Tucker would probably be dead right now. She thought of the manila folder she'd left in the office of the FBI Special Agent-in-Charge at the Memphis field office, and the man who'd given it to her. And she didn't know what to think.

One flaw she shared with Danny was a weakness for the opposite sex. Assuming his relationship with Sam ever ended, his hesitation and lack of self-confidence regarding the ironically called "fairer sex" would almost certainly be a thing of the past.

On that same note, the genes of her biological mother, and there _had _to be one as there was _no _way she could be a female clone of Danny were having a similar effect on her development. She was five foot ten, leggy, and far from flat-chested. Add to that the toned athletic body years of fighting in the mud and the blood with the worst humanity had to offer, and it was obvious that attracting men on a purely physical level was never going to be an issue for her. Which is why Cervantes had her flustered. She'd been…developed for awhile, and even if he had been respecting her age, he could have at least _hinted _at it before today.

"All right," Danny said, catching her attention, and snapping her out of her reverie "Valerie and I will take on looking for our friend out there. See where he's gone. You and Tucker do the background research. Find out, if you can, whether or not my family really is involved."

Danielle leaned back in her chair, "That's a tall order. Confirming whether or not your great-great-great grandfather served in the Confederate Army shouldn't be too hard. It shouldn't be too hard, even, to determine whether or not he served with Forrest's Cavalry Corps. But determining whether or not he was at Fort Pillow…I don't know."

Danny nodded, his face unreadable. "Well…confirm what you can."

"I will," she said. She turned to the monitor. "Do you know whether or not he survived the war?"

"_I believe so,_" Maddie said softly before shaking her head and grabbed the roster of available speeder pilots. "_I'm coming back down. I shouldn't be topside during this._

"I don't think that's a good idea," Danny said, "we don't know how much this ghost knows about us. We don't know if he's waiting near the shuttleport for you to come out. You should stay topside until we know more."

Maddie Fenton closed her eyes for a long moment. "_Fine. Fine I'll stay here. Just, stay safe, Danny. I love you._"

"I love you too, Mom," he said. "I've been doing this for years, I'll be fine."

"_I know,_" she said. "_Fenton, out._" And the monitor cleared.

_God help us,_ she thought to herself. Aloud she said, "Let's go Tucker."

* * *

Danny sighed as he watched Danielle and Tucker walk out of the room, chatting softly about where they had to go. He and Valerie were alone in the conference room. He gave his friend, who incidentally happened to be his ex, an appraising look. The solidly-muscled, _very _dark-skinned woman standing across the table from him had a faraway look in her dark brown eyes. Everything that had happened, everything she'd just learned, had deeply affected her, that much was clear. But what could he do about it? He didn't know what to say. He'd just learned his grandfather may or may not have helped to murder hundreds of people. Hundreds of _her _people; he shied away from the term "race." As the son of a biologist, he knew it didn't actually exist. That the racial categories society clung too so fiercely didn't track with actual human variation, indeed were themselves artificial. Regardless of their lack of reality though, the effects they'd had on society were all too real and had drenched the world in blood. Now, that dark bloody reality had come home to roost in their lives.

A thought occurred to him and he pulled out of his seat and walked into the hallway and looked at the case carrying a _mezuzah _that hung over the room.. As per tradition, each _mezuzah_, a scroll bearing Deuteronomy 6:9 and Deuteronomy 11:20, now hung above the entrance to every room in the house except closets and bathrooms…His mind flashed back to when she'd first put up them up…

_Danny rolled over softly in the large king-sized bed, feeling warm and sated in the brand new big bed in what used to be his parent's room. Part of him still couldn't believe it. It felt like, even though he would almost certainly be wrong, that the war was at last over. Vlad, it seems, had at last been defeated, and he had saved at least seven billion lives, and that was counting the human population. That was the best part, Sam _had moved in with him! _His hand reached out to feel where she'd lain with him last night, in more ways than one. Only to find her gone, where her warm body would be, there was only a lukewarm spot in the bed. His eyes flew open, confirming what his hand had felt. He relaxed, somewhat. Sam hadn't gone back home in the middle of the night, of course. She was probably in the bathroom or something._

_He was drifting off to sleep again when he heard the rustling and thumping sound in the hallway outside. The loud thumping that forced his eyes back open and sent him throwing back the comforter, and throwing on a shirt. He stepped out into the hallway to see Sam in front of the door to the room that had once been his, placing a black cylinder with a green Star of David so that the top of it slanted to face the doorway. She held it to the spot above the doorframe and bowed her head. He'd seen similar ones at her house, but something or ever had always come up before he could remember to ask what they were._

"Baruch atah Adonai Eloheinu melekh ha'olam, asher qideshanu bemitzvotav vetzivanu liqbo'a mezuzah_."_

"_Sam_?"

_She turned to him and favored him with one of those beautiful glowing smiles that made him want to melt into a twitching puddle on the floor. "Oh, hey Danny_. _I'm just hanging a _mezuzah."

"_A what?"_

"_A _mezuzah," _she repeated. "It's a piece of parchment that contains the _Shema Yisrael, _Deuteronomy 6:4-9 and 11:13-21. Usually it's hung only next to the doors to the outside, but in some Jewish households it's hung outside every room except bathrooms and storage closets. That was the interpretation in my family's house, and the interpretation I follow here." He heard the note of bitterness when she said the word family. Despite her disagreement with her parents, they were still her parents, particularly her mother, and she loved them deeply, and not having them at her back was a far deeper wound then she'd let on to most people. _

"_I'm sorry your family,_" _and by family I mean mother, "was less than approving of your emancipation. Or pretty much every decision you've made to date._"

_ "They're convinced I'm just some stupid kid," she said bitterly without a trace of irony despite her tender age, "like nothing I, _we_, accomplished, meant _anything. _ I've laid my life on the line for every living human being_ including my parents_, dozens of times, hell I've literally laid it _down. _And does that count for anything from them? No!"_

_ "Your grandmother understands," Danny said pointedly. "She's always supported us when your parents have gotten too overbearing."_

_ "My grandmother, has been a fighter literally her entire life," Sam said, pride in her eyes. "By the time she was my age, she had been slogging in the Polish countryside with the _Armia Krajowa, _sniping at _Wehrmacht_ and SS soldiers for two years. If anyone could understand my need to fight, it would be her. I doubt she likes the idea of me fighting, she came to this country after the war to start a new life in peace, one that I'm sure didn't involve her granddaughter taking up arms herself along her half-ghost boyfriend, but if anyone could understand why I'd feel the need to, one soldier to another, it's her._ _I guess that's what hurts. Along with my love for you, it was the faith and values that my family instilled in me, my whole family, which kept me going through our long years of war against Vlad. And those very same parents continue to barely tolerate you and act like everything _I've_ done fills them with shame." There were tears glistening in her eyes now, and without thinking Danny dragged her into his arms, and held her close._

_ "Your parents love you. And _I _love you." Danny whispered in her ear as he pressed a soft kiss to her. "They will remember that before the end. And even if they don't, _I _will never forget you. Or abandon you."_

_ "I know," Sam said softly, as she clung to him more fiercely._

Danny sighed. The fact remained that the rot of anti-Semitism had persisted in human society far longer than any other form of bigotry. The Ghost Zone had a _very _long memory, and if a victim of such evil could come out looking for vengenace, somewhere in that vast dimension must be a _perpetrator _of such evil of the type Ida Manson fought in her day, ready to return and carry on doing right what he'd done in life. He shuddered and reached into his pocket and pulled out a creased photo. It was a picture of him and Sam at the spot where he'd given her the ring inscribed with her name on the hill. Has it really only been a few months? He kissed her photo. And wondered just how much of the past was waiting in the wings to bite them.

* * *

Valerie pushed the door open to Danny's former room, to see Sam and Tucker sitting at the desks in front of the window, bathed in the green light of the SpecterShield as they sat tapping away on their laptops. Every so often the green light filling the room would pulse as the shield protecting them from their angry ghost friend changed frequencies.

"Got anything guys?"

"No," a frustrated Tucker Foley said from Danni's left. "We've been combing through seemingly every set of genealogy records libraries in the South have managed to put on the internet, but it's slow-going. The South, especially the Deep South, has lagged beyond the north economically pretty much since the end of the war, it's not as far along as it would be in the North. And Danny's maternal family is from a particularly poor Arkansas community."

"Yeah," Danni said, "We may have to go down there ourselves and start looking through microfilm. I also want to talk to a contact of mine in Fayetteville. He's on his second year of graduate work at the University of Arkansas and he's been one of my contacts since I escaped Vlad." _Also more than a contact, if our forest assignation is any indication._ He's not really aware of my link with Danny. I don't think they've even met more than once or twice. But he knows more about the Civil War than most of his professors. I think we require a bit more deep background on this incident than I think I can get just browsing the internet for an hour. Problem _is _it'll take a few days to get there car, and we don't know what our friend out there will do during that time. Also, Tucker's rated as an ECO on a Specter Speeder, not a pilot."

Valerie nodded, seeing the problem. "I'm not a pilot either though. While Danny's a good enough pilot to do in a pinch, by far the best pilot is Sam. Unfortunately she's on a suborbital flight to Hong Kong." She was still amazed that she could say that. One of the flood of new innovations stemming from the fact that all of his research, designs and prototypes were now in the hands of FentonWorks was the expansion of space travel. Whereas apart from a new generation of computers to fit in cars, the basic mechanics of cars basically remained unchanged, it was making waves in aviation, and space travel. Finally, low-cost economical space travel, at least within the confines of the solar system was on the verge of happening. Right now, more than one manned survey mission was on the moon. And while it was still expensive, the costs would only continue to go down once they managed to finish assembly lining the short-range survey vessels. She, like pretty much everyone else in their little team was energized about the possibilities inherent in this.

None of which did anything for their current situation.

"We have two choices. One, we check to see if there's a company pilot available. Two, we get Jazz. However she's in just as much danger as Danny's parents are."

"Where is Jazz?"

"On the far side of the Moon, representing FentonWorks with the survey mission."

"So we can't get her back."

"Not quickly, no." Valerie said. "However, I'll have a message sent to her as soon as she comes out of the communications shadow, get her up to speed."

"Well, then I have to go myself," Danielle said, standing up, apprehension filling her.

* * *

Cervantes Quinn sighed as he sat in his armchair at his apartment, a blissful look on his face as he thought about what had happened yesterday. The way Danielle's lips moved against his as he kissed her, the way her body felt pressed against his as he pinned her against a tree. He felt…giddy, and it hadn't really stopped in the day or so since they had parted ways. They could talk about what had happened, when she came back, and she _always _came back. She'd pretty much lived on his sofa between missions for the past three years, thinking back to the dirty, half-starved barely thirteen-year-old girl who his late sister had taken over to his apartment, after she'd suddenly collapsed (and reverted back to her human form) after a battle with a street gang.

_Apparently even superheroes need to eat too_, he'd thought to himself, as they'd fed her and allowed her to shower. After that, he'd ended up allowing her to crash on her sofa, helping with research into whatever threat she was going up against that week, all in all proving herself to be much more capable and competent then he'd been at thirteen. And it had been…apparent even then that she'd had a perfectly understandable crush on the handsome older guy who'd helped her in her hour of need. He hadn't really returned it of course, she was pretty, but she'd still clearly been a kid. Then about a year ago, she'd…stopped looking like a scrawny kid. Finally something clicked in to place, and he realized that what he felt for her…was beyond friendship, something his late sister had insisted he should tell her about before she...

"Hey," a familiar feminine voice said from behind her. And he jolted out of her chair a though a current had passed through him.

"Dani," he said quickly, struggling to keep the goofy smile off his face, his face heating as he stared at her in her half-ghost form. "Hi." He shook his head, and remembered earlier. "Did you get the information to the Feds?"

"Yes," she said softly, phasing into her human form and collapsing into the armchair next to where he'd been sitting. "Then something else came up."

"Something else always comes up."

She gave a wan smile. "Well, this is a somewhat tall order." Her face fell. "Not as tall as what happened recently, of course. But still tall." She sighed, her eyes beginning to glisten with tears. "And if you don't want to help me with this in light of what happened earlier I understand."

Folded his arms across his chest. "You never have to say that. We all understood the risk." He walked over to her and without thinking she got out of the chair and wrapped her arms around. He held her for a long moment, before whispering. "You have to remember it was the enemy that killed her. Not you." She stared up at him, tears in her eyes, at the memory that despite what he said would haunt _him _for the rest of his life as well. His sister, Lisa Quinn, lying in a pool of her own blood, her right arm severed at the shoulder, begging them to help her, and all they could do was watch her bleed to death.

And leave her there.

The two held each other for a long moment, staring at each other silently. He reached out and cupped her face softly. She looked at him in surprise for a moment before leaning in to his touch. He leaned in to press a kiss to her lips only for her to put her hand on his mouth and gently push him back.

"Not yet," she said softly, "I still need to talk to you about what's going on."

"Okay," he said, and he tugged on her shoulder gently, guiding her over to the sofa behind her. "Tell me."

"Well," she said when. "You're not going to believe this. After we finished up yesterday…"

"You're right," he said, half an hour later. "I don't believe this. So…a ghost from the Civil War shows up, determined to kill your cousin for something that happened a hundred and fifty years ago."

"Is that so hard to understand? I have an overwhelming urge to hunt down the specific people responsible for Lisa's murder. And for that matter, so do you."

"Yes, but I wouldn't go after their children or their family pets!" Cervantes said hotly. "I wouldn't abandon our child to-," His mouth abruptly snapped shut, almost of its own volition when he realized what he said.

"He's been hurting for a long time," she said, "I mean to endure something that horrible effects those who survive. Someone who died because of it and then had to exist with it for a century and a half with no counseling or help whatsoever…" She shook her head. "It's why Danny doesn't want to kill him unless he leaves us no other choice."

"Do you think he'll leave him any other choice?"

"I don't know," Danielle said, "I hope so. But that leads why I came here instead of staying behind to help fight. I want to look into his allegations. I want to look into whether or not one of his ancestors rode with Forrest."

He felt a rush of nervous…something flood through him, as he tried to understand just what he was asking. "That's a lot of work you realize that, right? Determining whether or not he rode with Forrest is probably doable, but placing him at a specific battle or proving that he murdered someone at that Fort is another matter entirely."

"I know," Danielle said with a wan smile on her face, "but if anyone can help me investigate this it's you." Then a slow smile appeared on her face. "Besides," she said, running a finger down his chest. "Considering what happened earlier, I'd think you'd jump at a chance to spend more time with me. Particularly after what you said a moment ago."

His face flushed. "About that-," only to be interrupted by her mouth crashing against his. She broke the kiss before he could respond. "Let's get one thing straight, I don't regret what happened earlier, and neither do you, even if we _did _go farther than I intended. Two, I wouldn't have let you touch me if I didn't absolutely trust you. Three," she sighed softly. "Three, I…love you. I have for quite a while now. Yes, it may have started as a precocious crush, but I'm not a barely pubescent girl anymore. And I've wanted what happened earlier to happen for a while now."

"You mean you were-," Cervantes began.

"Yeah," she said before he could finish.

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"My hymen was broken a long time ago," she said softly, "probably during a fight. As for the rest of the pain, I could deal with it. And it's not like it lasted too long," she finished with a smirk. "I regret what happened only in the sense that I could have done without the rough tree bark. Now that we're back in civilization, I know you have a nice, soft bed. What I want is to order a pizza then reconvene there for the rest of the night to...build upon what happened earlier."


End file.
